Brenton Gospodarek

Homemade graham crackers are a healthy choice.

Growing out of childhood is a fact of life. Although we may have given up climbing trees and jumping through rain puddles, we could never grow out of our love for s'mores.

Whether you like yours with a burnt marshmallow, dark chocolate bar or schmear of peanut butter, almost everyone puts their favorite ingredients on a graham cracker.

But this humble vessel has more history than you probably realized. A Presbyterian minister named Sylvester Graham invented it in 1829 as part of his healthy "Graham Diet," which also included using whole wheat in bread, sleeping on hard mattresses and keeping your windows open.

These graham crackers were made with graham flour, which you can still find in health food stores, and included a mixture of unbleached wheat flour, wheat bran and wheat germ.

These days, most commercial graham crackers have white flour as a base and are a slightly less sweet version of a cookie. However, homemade versions can include a range of different flours and sweetness levels.

This recipe from "Gale Gand's Just a Bite" (Clarkson Potter, $32.50) features a mixture of whole-wheat, rye and all-purpose flours to make a more nutritious cracker than you'll typically find in stores.

Biggest surprise: That my kitchen didn't turn into a complete mess, which usually happens when I bake. With the help of a food processor, the dough couldn't be easier to put together. The result was a clean kitchen that smelled heavenly hours after the crackers baked.

Critical steps: Don't try to save time by not chilling the dough. After you roll it out, it gets pretty sticky. For this reason, I also chilled it an additional 15 minutes after I had rolled the dough to 1/8 inch and cut the crackers into squares.

The next time, I may roll the dough between two pieces of parchment paper and then, after cutting the crackers, transfer the dough-covered parchment straight to a baking sheet and bake (without separating the crackers). Other bakers I read about online separated the crackers after baking with good results.

Comparison to its commercial counterpart: The homemade version has the same texture as the store-bought kind, that slight airiness that separates a graham cracker from a regular cracker. It's also not as sweet or fragile. Homemade grahams hold up well, especially when encasing chocolate and marshmallows for the ultimate homemade s'more.

Is it worth it? Definitely. Bakers can rejoice because they should have nearly every ingredient already in their pantry (except maybe the rye flour). Therefore, it's pretty economical to make these at home.

Other notes: When buying rye flour, stick to light or regular varieties. Dark rye flour is meant for baking rye or pumpernickel bread.

Also, don't limit your graham cracker making to just summer - or the eating to just s'mores. These slightly sweet crackers pair well with peanut butter for an afternoon snack or with ice cream, crumbled on top.

Homemade Graham Crackers
Makes 48 crackers

½ cup all-purpose flour

1 ¼ cups whole-wheat flour

½ cup light rye flour

½ cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ cup (1 stick) cold butter, cut into pea-size bits

2 tablespoons honey

2 tablespoon molasses

¼ cup cold water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a food processor or the bowl of an electric mixer, mix together the flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add the cold butter and mix or process until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add honey, molasses, water and vanilla. Mix until dough comes together in a ball.

Lightly flour the dough and roll out to 1/8-inch thickness. With a sharp knife or cookie cutter, cut into 2-inch squares.

Arrange the crackers on parchment-lined baking sheets about a half-inch apart. With a fork, prick several holes in each cracker. Bake in preheated oven 15 minutes, or until lightly browned at the edges. Remove from oven and let cool in the pan.

DIY Kitchen explores the making from scratch of food products normally purchased at the store. Send your suggestions for future DIY Kitchen topics to food editor Nancy Stohs at nstohs@journalsentinel.com.